Equations of the shallow water model on a rotating attracting sphere. 1. Derivation and general properties

A shallow water model on a rotating attracting sphere is proposed to describe large-scale motions of the gas in planetary atmospheres and of the liquid in the world ocean. The equations of the model coincide with the equations of gas-dynamic of a polytropic gas in the case of spherical gas motions on the surface of a rotating sphere. The range of applicability of the model is discussed, and the conservation of potential vorticity along the trajectories is proved. The equations of stationary shallow water motions are presented in the form of Bernoulli and potential vorticity integrals, which relate the liquid depth to the stream function. The simplest stationary solutions that describe the equilibrium state differing from the spherically symmetric state and the zonal flows along the parallels are found. It is demonstrated that the stationary equations of the model admit the infinitely dimensional Lie group of equivalence.